Fanning the flames of skateboarding through random web clips.

37. Caravan Welcomes DJ Brown

Here’s a little shot of weekend stoke: little imprint Carvan Skateboards (full disclosure: two of my buddies own and operate this brand) has added midwestern ripper DJ Brown to the squad. Movie soundtrack darlings Hot Chocolate provide the backing music here and it instantly turns the stoke meter up to 11, only to be decreased a bit by constantly cutting back to shots of the band’s music video. For me, the continued reappearance of Errol Brown on screen takes me a tad out of the skating but, you know, I never mind Errol Brown on screen in any other context so I’ll let it slide. The real winner here is DJ Brown’s ridiculous ollie. It’s got power, grace, and slop all in one. He’s able to use it to heft himself onto and over some serious obstacles, 5050ing around stomach-high curved ledges while grabbing Indy or contorting himself around jumbo trash cans out of curb cuts. Real magic occurs when the ollie morphs based on what spot DJ is skating. It has almost NO verticality to it when he’s hucking himself down some insanely huge gap or stair set. In these instances it’s more like the kid at the skatepark who jumps off the top of the quarterpipe to the flat bottom – zero pop and pure speed, no tweak whatsoever as the back truck never makes it above the front, legs extended fully as body and board trudge through the air. Probably unsightly to some, to me it’s pure and real, a visual representation of the trick’s difficulty as well as a reminder that sometimes aesthetics aren’t what’s important – it’s the feeling of riding away. When you take this approach, everyone’s a winner, baby. That’s the truth.